Hi Matt,
I love all your articles and contributions to this site!
Very kind, thank you!
I have two questions (if it’s busy feel free to not answer both):
First, of all your travel experiences, what’s the one that you most enjoy recounting/talking to others about, and/or the experience that you look back on with the most fondness?
I've been to a lot of very interesting destinations, so this is a tough question!
I think the trip I most enjoy talking about is my visit last year to Uzbekistan. It's such an amazing destination, with lots of fascinating history, things to see, great food and they somehow have better high-speed rail than Australia. As a destination it totally blew me away, and I've enthusiastically recommended it to many of my friends.
On a more personal level, I think the experience I look back on with the most fondness of all though was my first ever trip to Europe as a 17-year-old. I saved up for a year to travel to Germany, where I did an intensive language course and stayed with a local host family. I also had to spend quite a lot of time convincing my parents to let me go. So when I finally boarded the Qantas Boeing 747 to Frankfurt, it was like a dream come true. Even though I was up the back of economy, it was an experience I won't forget and I got a lot out of that trip.
Second, conversely, which of your travel experiences was the most harrowing (either at the time, or as you look back on it now)?
Thanks Matt!
I think I'm a fairly confident traveller and not much really scares me any more. But two experiences come to mind.
One was a flight I took on Scat Air from Astana to Shymkent (Kazakhstan) in the middle of winter. It was about -25 degrees, snowing heavily and there was a think layer of ice on the wings - but we took off anyway. The plane didn't crash but I wasn't feeling good during that takeoff and climb out.
The other time was when I almost got mugged in Athens. A group of teenagers followed my friend and I off a train and started to surround us from different sides after we left the station. (I thought they were going to pickpocket us inside the train so that got my attention initially.) Luckily my friend and noticed and we quickly decided to return to the station and wait in a crowded place for the police to arrive.